DCMU — Justice League of America: Equal and Opposite
by JasonNoir
Summary: Alternate universe. A merged DC and Marvel continuity. The newly-formed JLA embarks on a pair of missions, which will guide them into the crosshairs of a vicious rival team: the Injustice League.
1. Chapter 1

**DCMU Justice League of America: "Equal and Opposite"**

 **Gotham City — Five Nights Ago**

It was the symbol of Gotham's failure. Blackgate Penitentiary. The monolithic island prison came into view and Steve Rogers exhaled, steeling himself. He considered the massive, sad structure, noting how placid it appeared from a distance. Not unlike the beaches he'd stormed more than half a century ago.

Immediately to his left Bruce Wayne piloted the Batboat with frigid ease. The orphaned son of Gotham. Its ebony-suited knight. The Batman.

"Thought for a second you'd gotten us lost," Steve commented.

No reply. It was to be expected.

Glancing overhead, Steve maintained visual contact with their aerial escort. A flying force that could rival any produced by a modern military. Kara Zor-L, the first of three. A Kryptonian demigod known as Power Girl. The team's nuclear option. She floated through the night as she always did, dominant, yet restrained.

Next in the formation was Ororo Munroe. A mutant matriarch, codenamed Storm. She served as the team's principal training instructor and its mutant ambassador. The heavy winds upon which she glided were hers to command.

Third was Victor Stone, who possessed the all too appropriate handle Cyborg. A technological wonder, and the team's intelligence wellspring. He was propelled skyward by the faculties of his own cybernetic body.

"Are we there yet?" Jennifer Walters whined from the backseat.

Steve could practically feel the woman's anxiousness, her zest for violence. As if it radiated from her olive-green skin. As if it might cause her to burst through the boat's canopy and fully embrace her nickname: She-Hulk. Jennifer was the team's legal representative, but on the battlefield she was so much more.

"We're close," Steve told her before activating the comm-link at the neck of his suit. "Cyborg, this is Leader. Request sitrep."

"Cyborg to Leader," the young man responded, "Blackgate's issued another distress call. Guards inside have been overwhelmed. Prisoners have raided the armory. They appear to be doped up on MGH."

"Mutant Growth Hormone," Batman growled.

"How'd the prisoners get a hold of it?" She-Hulk pondered.

"Blackgate isn't exactly corruption-free," he explained.

"Situation's developing, sir." Power Girl chimed over the comm as the team approached the penitentiary. Using her enhanced hearing sense she sifted through blaring alarms, cracking gunfire and agitated voices at the prison's perimeter.

"What've you got, Kara?" Steve inquired.

"A contingent of prisoners are storming the Eastern pier. They're overtaking a transport there. Trying to make an escape."

"Let me at em', _puh-lease_ let me at em'!" An exhilarated voice rang out over the comm. It belonged to the team's speedster, Barry Allen. The Flash.

Steve regarded Flash on the Batboat's starboard side. The red-suited speed demon maintained pace and course with their vehicle by zipping atop the water's surface.

"Negative, Flash," was Steve's answer. "We've got to be calculating."

"Right now I'm _calculating_ how many seconds it'll take me to clear that entire prison on my own," Flash challenged. "It's not very many."

"There's a saying, kid," Batman scorned. "Fools rush in."

For a pair of seconds Steve contemplated. He played dozens of battle plans out in his head. The team was still very young. He couldn't assign them anything too complex.

He breathed in.

"This is Leader to all suits," he began, "don't make me repeat these orders. Cyborg, I want you making low sweeps over the Eastern pier. Draw what enemy fire you can. Storm, watch his back and keep your eyes peeled for an ambush."

"Yes, sir," they both stated.

"Power Girl," Steve continued, "think you can keep that transport from fleeing the scene?"

"With ease and with pleasure."

"Batman will navigate us to the Southern pier. As we dock, Flash, I want you disarming and dispatching as many hostiles as possible."

"Does Batman count as a hostile? He can be pretty rude."

Steve ignored him. "Once we dock, you're our wrecking ball, She-Hulk. Clear us a path to the main structure."

"Uh-huh," she replied.

"Assuming we don't screw this up, I want everyone to regroup at the South entrance. Try to stay off the comm unless you need assistance. Any questions?"

"Here's one," Batman uttered into Steve's ear. "Do you really think the team's prepared for this?"

"We don't need to be _prepared_ for every event," Steve stated softly, "we just need to be willing to take action."

"Oh! I think I hear shooting!" Flash exclaimed.

Steve prayed silently. For the safety of his comrades. For each and every guard inside Blackgate. For each of the prisoners, too. Then he made peace with the fact that he, one of seven daring heroes, was about to dash into chaos.

"Let justice be served," he declared over the comm, signaling each member of the team to proceed.

Encased in threatening metallic plating, Cyborg dove like a fighter jet upon Blackgate's Eastern pier. Storm swept down after him, orchestrating the winds and plunging majestically like a kite, her ivory hair whipping wildly.

The distant silhouettes of prisoners began to form. They were the size of army figurines, their orange jumpsuits flashing, making them like beacons, stampeding through the dimness.

The prisoners grew larger, nearer. Spotting Cyborg, they stood firm upon the dock and raised their Armalite rifles.

Cyborg lifted his forearm, emitting a circular force shield from the top of his wrist. As rifle fire crackled through the air, each of the well-aimed projectiles glanced harmlessly off of the energized buffer.

With a swaying of her arms Storm called forth fearsome gusts of rain and air, swatting the orange hostiles from the deck and casting them into chilling Gotham waters.

A second later, Power Girl descended like a supersonic bomb upon the ash gray naval transport. She decelerated rapidly, then hovered just shy of the ship's flank.

With gloved fingers she dug into the side of its thick hull, securing a sound grip. She then elevated herself, higher and higher, hauling the giant craft along with her. 1,500 tons. She hoisted it as if it were a bag of groceries.

Steve monitored her exhibition of strength from the Batboat. "She's a Kryptonian alright."

"Big deal," She-Hulk huffed, "I could lift that thing, too. I think."

Power Girl carted the naval transport vertically until she reached the roof of the immense prison structure. As gingerly as one could, she set the ship down onto the roof's surface. The frame of Blackgate prison shuddered under its mass, then held steady.

Touching down nearby, Power Girl spotted over a dozen armed prisoners flooding out of the transport's cargo doors. They peppered her with gunfire, the rifle rounds impacting meekly against her pristine white uniform, her impossibly dense alien musculature. She felt nothing.

One by one, their weapons clicked empty.

"This is usually the part where bad guys start running," she remarked.

Then she noticed their enhanced stature and muscularity. The icy malice in their eyes. She keyed in on their accelerated heart rates. The were reaping the benefits of MGH. The drug made them more aggressive, more brazen.

They charged her with rifles raised like axes. With superhuman speed and rage. It wasn't enough.

She dashed in between them with superior quickness, like a jolting electric current. She tapped each of the men with a jab to the midsection. A reserved, exacting strike that impacted against the liver and caused the nervous system to swell with pain, the body to collapse.

The prisoners dropped like dominoes. Some passed out. Others curled up and groaned.

On an adjacent side of the island, the Batboat screamed towards the Southern pier. Rifle rounds clanged against its armored carapace, delivered by a clique of enemies waiting at the pier's edge.

"Shield your ears, everyone," Batman advised.

He flipped a switch, activating the boat's mounted LRAD. The blaring forward sound emitter filled the night with a numbingly shrill and perpetual tone. It infected the prisoners with panic and agony.

Flash took the opportunity to lance forth, causing a shock wave as he ignited his explosive rate of speed. His movements were so swift as to no longer be visible, save for patches of red static, which swept through the already disoriented foes.

After the passing of a few seconds, the prisoners found themselves dangling in a column from one of Blackgate's gargantuan watchtowers. Bound at the ankles and suspended by their own jumpsuits.

Moments later the Batboat was docked. Steve, the icon of heroism known as Captain America, sprinted for the penitentiary walls. Utterly focused. His body chemistry roused by adrenaline and the corporal rewards of the super soldier serum. Batman trailed behind him, followed by She-Hulk.

A glaring blue spotlight swung to greet them, projected from one of the elevated guard towers. The three heroes found themselves outlined in an annular glow.

"Get to cover!" Steve commanded.

They scattered as bursts of automatic fire cascaded down from the tower. Pulse cannon blasts, raking across the terrain around them. Steve huddled beneath the might of his vibranium shield, its material shunting the impact of several high-velocity shocks.

He shuffled and dove, finding cover behind rocks at the island's edge. Batman, via athletic prowess and highly trained reflexes, had done the same a split second prior.

A cannon barrage smashed into She-Hulk's robust physique just before she found the rock sanctuary. She showed no signs of discomfort.

"That tower's been overtaken by bad guys," Steve announced as bolts rained down on their position.

"Are you Captain America or Captain Obvious?" She-Hulk retorted. "I'll handle it. I owe them one."

With thick legs she vaulted skyward, an immense leap, which stopped short of the tower but generated enough momentum for a second, far more explosive upsurge. The tower's spotlight and cannon bursts veered wildly, attempting in vain to catch her in midair.

"Now, while they're distracted! Move!" Steve hollered.

He leaped from cover, as did Batman, and the two raced for the South entrance of the prison structure. The wail of grating metal and She-Hulk's impish laughter sounded overhead. Steve suppressed a grin.

A pair of massive titanium doors at the South entrance slid open unexpectedly as the two heroes neared them.

"Get out of sight!" Steve cried.

It was too late. A monstrous, reptilian being of freakish stature emerged from between the doors, spotting them. The figure snarled and snorted with enmity. Craggy malachite hide tearing through his orange jumpsuit.

"Killer Croc." Batman acknowledged.

"Bat." The human-reptile grunted, with a voice that could easily have belonged to a gravel-eating lion.

Batman frowned. Croc had grown considerably. Husky, immense, with a boiling mania in his eyes. The Gotham felon must've been consuming MGH like it was Halloween candy. As if he hadn't been dangerous before.

"He wants me," Batman claimed, waving Steve off.

Steve knew better. In truth Batman was signaling him, making him aware that Croc would soon be distracted long enough for Steve to flank the monster and engage.

Killer Croc sprang with ferocity just as Batman loosed a weapon from his belt. It was a compact stun gun. Batman aimed at the sprinting Croc. He selected a higher-voltage setting, intended for super-powered threats, and fired.

The stun gun sent metallic barbs into the beast's upper torso, followed by a tremendous voltaic current. Croc groaned, his muscles stiffening momentarily, but continued his stride, his fibers rekindled and ballooning along with his rage.

Croc was deceptively fast, and closed distance like a darting cheetah. But to Batman the villain's offense had always been too telegraphed. His strikes too wide, wound-up, his limbs too ungainly. Drugs or no, he would remain hindered by lack of technique.

With a massive, scaled arm Croc swiped, his claws thirsting for Batman's throat. Batman rolled under the attack with gymnastic grace, pivoting to take up position behind his enemy. In a sharp motion he drove a kick up into the beast's groin. No effect.

Steve emerged, plummeting from a high leap, and drove his shield into Croc's neck with a heavy downward strike. Croc grumbled, wobbling slightly, but to Steve's surprise was otherwise unfazed.

Steve winced as Croc gripped him by his suit and then tossed him violently, twenty yards or more, into a concrete wall. His spine smacked against the barrier, denting it, the collision jostling his vertebrae and lighting him up with pain. He dropped.

Batman took the opportunity to withdraw, create distance. He cast a string of smoke pellets onto the surface around him. The pellets detonated in small pops, veiling the battlefield in thick sheets of black vapor.

The mere act of moving bit at Steve's nerves. He set down on one knee and reached for his comm-link. "This is leader to all suits. Have engaged Killer Croc at the South entrance. Need backup—"

Then the vaulting Croc was upon him, hissing from overhead. He crashed down with a stony extended arm, serrated knuckles jutting forth like the end of a battering ram. Steve intercepted the strike, just barely, with his stalwart shield.

A second merciless strike sprang at him, this time a clawed slash. It raked bits of ore from his shield, digging scars into its starred insignia.

Batman materialized from the smoke, leaping onto Croc's back and clipping a cylindrical grenade to the collar of his jumpsuit. The monster instinctively tensed, then grasped for his assailant to no avail. Batman had already detached from him.

Killer Croc clawed at his collar, but in a single second the grenade burst, spreading dense billows of white-orange smoke, shrouding the beast's head in a torrential hood.

The chemical compound was, as intended, savagely potent. It scalded Croc's equilibrium, setting his eyes, throat, nasal cavity and lungs on fire with coarse irritation. He howled, then choked, stumbling and swinging wildly.

Abruptly, an all too familiar voice clamored, rapidly drawing near.

"Cavalry's arrived! Left my trumpet at home, though."

Flash surged into range in streaks of red, circling Croc again and again with stunning haste. The lightning-swift revolutions produced a swelling of air, which lifted and ravaged the fiend in an abrasive cyclone, sending him upward, 50 yards high.

In no time a second streak lanced into the storm. A white streak, the nimble Power Girl, who closed in on Croc and delivered a rocketing straight punch. Her strike thudded with the force of a tank-busting warhead, impacting just behind her foe's ear.

Croc blacked out immediately, his brain jounced into unconsciousness. His hulking form plummeted at a fastball's speed and crashed, cracking the earth. He lay still, defeated, within a small crater.

"That might have been a bit much," Flash commented.

"Let's get him restrained, then regroup with the others," Steve said.

"I just want to point out, for the record," Flash insisted, "that I got here quicker than Power Girl."

Minutes later, all seven heroes took up formation by the South entrance's titanium doors.

"I'm accessing Blackgate's security grid," Cyborg declared, his neural nexus scanning, doctoring and interlinking at breakneck speeds. "It's largely been shut down. Rebooting now."

In seconds he had each of the prison's security cameras playing in his mind.

"What do you see?" Storm inquired.

"It's not pretty. The inmates are running the asylum, for lack of a better phrase."

Cyborg fixated on one video feed in particular, it displayed traffic coming in and out of the prison's mess hall. "They're steering all guards into the mess hall on the first floor. Beating and humiliating them."

Then he spotted something else. "They're bringing in drums of gasoline. I'll give you three guesses as to what those are for."

"We'd better act fast, Captain." She-Hulk urged.

Steve deliberated. "Okay. These are your orders."

—

Scores of guards were made to line up against a wall inside of Blackgate's sizable mess hall. They were cuffed at the ankles and wrists, crestfallen, cut and badly bruised.

The hall's entrance spilled out into the primary cell block array, where orange-clad prisoners funneled in and out, carting in more guards as well as drums of gasoline.

A squad of prisoners held position near the center of the hall, training their rifles on the cuffed guards.

In an instant the area went pitch black. Visibility perished, leaving only the uttered profanities of a few agitated prisoners.

It was a power outage, brought about by Cyborg's technopathic orchestrations.

One of the prisoners barked, "Get someone down to the electrical room—"

And then, for a split second, the lights flickered back to life. It was more than enough time for Flash, who'd just entered the building by phasing through its walls. Vibrating his core at such an accelerated rate that his molecules had become intangible.

In that brief moment of illumination he buzzed through the squad of prisoners, stripping away their rifles, ejecting each of the weapon's magazines and chambered rounds.

"Go!" Flash shouted into his comm link.

Twin booms erupted on either side of the room, the first produced by Power Girl as she briskly smashed a hole through the ceiling and dropped into the hall, Storm and Steve appearing just behind her. The three stood between the restrained guards and the now weaponless prisoners.

The second rumble was elicited by She-Hulk, who crushed chunks out of a wall at the prisoners' flank. She stepped through, joined by Batman and Cyborg.

The hall lit up again fully, revealing to the prisoners the bleakness of their situation. They didn't care. Hollering, they dashed headlong at the heroes without ever considering the option to flee.

Immediately a detachment of additional prisoners, well-armed, rushed from the cell block array to join them.

"Barrier!" Steve shouted.

Power Girl nodded, parting her lips and venting out icy exhalations, astonishingly cold, which began the formation of a wall of ice, positioned between the vulnerable guards and the rest of the violence.

Storm aided her, eyes gleaming with incandescent white, conjuring up sheets of crystal and snow to bolster the fortification.

Gunfire flooded the hall, more angered prisoners charging into range as the ones already present engaged the heroes in a fierce melee.

"Crowd control!" Steve urged, his heart rate soaring in the midst of whizzing projectiles, flailing limbs and hurling foes. "Any time now!"

"My favorite," She-Hulk cheered, extending her arms to either side. She fiercely slammed them inwards, her palms smacking together to produce a sonic boom, a punishing thunderclap, directed at a cluster of foes.

The shock wave uprooted each of them and lobbed them every which way, many traveling for several yards before inevitably meeting something solid.

Cyborg trained his sights on another grouping of prisoners. The mechanical components of his outstretched arm shifted and reformed, converting into a bizarre weapon with two conductive pincers.

The pincers sparked, loosing electrified jolts, lashing strands of blue chaotic flux. They stung the mass of enemies, freezing their muscles and biting them with sharp vibrations. They keeled over.

The prisoners' numbers were thinning considerably. As the skirmish poured out from the hall and into the cell block array, the heroes were greeted by a crew of armored mech suits. High-tech enforcement units designed to suppress riots. The machines were now being piloted by the prisoners themselves.

Showing no restraint, the bulky mech units loosed repulsor beam volleys upon the heroes.

Steve's vibranium safeguard withstood the energized punishment, as did Cyborg's force shield. Power Girl and Flash whizzed and juked to avoid the red beams, and She-Hulk weathered the assault by forming a high guard with thick forearms.

Batman and Storm, however, were each caught by one or two of the concussive blasts. The hammering shocks stunned and propelled them, and as gravity pulled them back to the floor their momentum caused them to tumble and skid.

"Cyborg, can you shut those things down?" Steve requested.

"I'm working on it, just need—"

Before he could finish, a towering masculine figure, clutching a shotgun, plunged down from the catwalk overhead. As he landed, the man brought his weapon down violently, clubbing Cyborg at the aft of his skull.

Cyborg toppled, his vision tripling, equilibrium askew.

The man stood over him, dominant, revealing himself to the others. Physically dense, like a statue, with ghostly pale complexion and a ghoulish countenance. The inmate called Lonnie Thompson Lincoln, but more notably referred to as Tombstone.

He raised his weapon and blasted, joined by the mech squad and their hefty arsenal.

"Flash, get Victor! Fall back, team!" Steve ordered.

The group complied, including Batman and Storm, who were still moderately injured. The seven retreated to the mess hall, hounded by a hailstorm of pellets, repulsor beams, flame jets and sonic screeches.

In spite of the onslaught, Steve managed to seal the titanium door leading to the hall. Granting them a few fleeting seconds of breathing room.

"How is he?" Steve asked, motioning to the stunned Cyborg.

"Woozy," Flash replied.

"Two options," shouted Tombstone from the other side of the door, "come out, or get smoked out!"

"He sounds like a nice guy," She-Hulk remarked.

Flash glimpsed the drums of gasoline positioned in a corner of the hall. "I wanna try something," he proclaimed.

Beyond the door, Tombstone took up position with the mech units, readying their weapons, preparing to blast the door down and submerge the hall with flame.

"If it wasn't already clear," Tombstone pronounced, grinning, "Blackgate now belongs to us!"

Then the door burst open, and Flash blitzed outward, in dashing streams of red, covering distance and planting objects, sprinting at a lightning pace, a swiftness that could not be perceived by the human senses.

Before anyone had recognized, Flash was already well beyond Tombstone's blockade, positioned behind the ghoul and each of the mech suits.

"Sure it does, pal," Flash chuckled.

Tombstone swerved around, realizing at once that he and every one of the mechs were now encircled by drums of gasoline.

Power Girl peeked out of the doorway, her eyes glaring an intense red. She swept the area with searing optic beams, her heat vision, igniting the drums in a cataclysmic chain reaction.

The cell block erupted in a percussive sequence of booms, shocking and pronounced. The space converted suddenly into a concrete canal of tremendous heat and terrible concussive force.

The deafening booms reached their coda, leaving behind vibrant, concentrated waves of flame.

It would take Power Girl and Storm several seconds to dissipate the sweltering orange inferno, infusing the space with sheets of ice and gusts of arctic relief.

When the vast blaze subsided, the mech suits lie motionless, strewn about, their armored hulls chewed up and scorched. The pilots within them appeared to be notably thrashed, but breathing.

Tombstone stretched out on the floor, within an inch of his life, charred and paralyzed. The steep amounts of MGH in his system likely the only reason he'd survived.

The seven team members, allied as the Justice League of America, grouped up amidst the wreckage. They inspected the surroundings, then hovered over their singed foe.

"If it wasn't already clear," scowled Batman, "Blackgate now belongs to _us_."


	2. Chapter 2

**Earth's** **Moon — Three Days Ago**

Surveying the ashy, infertile expanse of the moon from his window provided Steve with a rare aura of solace. As usual, he complimented the view with his morning coffee, though something in its bitterness had a habit of making him cringe.

Over the past week or so he'd worked at getting the coffee machine in his living quarters properly calibrated. Something kooky about the Watchtower's electrical system seemed to be sabotaging his efforts, causing the machine to reset whenever he neared success.

He thought at times that Cyborg might be playing a cruel, technopathic joke on him.

The young man had recovered quickly from his injury at the hands of Tombstone. His automated regenerative programs had made sure of that. Nevertheless, Steve felt endlessly responsible for the harm that had come to his comrade. He should have been watching Cyborg's back.

Steve reflected on the work he'd been doing for the better part of a day and a half. Reviewing the team's performance at Blackgate. Looking for tactical errors, communication failures and his own personal weak points. There had been many.

In the hours after they'd dispatched Tombstone, the League had directed their attention to rounding up all prisoners, ensuring medical aid for the wounded, restoring Blackgate's security grid and mending harm done to the facility and its equipment.

Steve refilled his cup. There was still much to go over. There was still much to be done.

A digitized bell chimed at Steve's door and he reached for his office desk, pressing a button. The metal door slid open and in strode Storm, graceful and commanding, smartly dressed in a blazer and ankle-length pants.

"Good morning, Captain," she greeted.

"Ororo. Please have a seat. Would you like some coffee?"

She declined. The two sat at either side of Steve's desk.

"Small talk?"

"Just business, please." she returned.

"Very well. First, the training session with She-Hulk."

"Promising. We worked for 90 minutes on situational awareness, mobility and evasive action. As you pointed out, she has a tendency to hold position and absorb damage."

"Yes," he acknowledged.

"It's in Jennifer's nature to stand her ground. To be the toughest one in a fight. Unlearning some of these habits will take time."

"I understand."

"I'll be sending you my detailed review later today. Performance stats, video footage."

"Thank you."

"Shall we move on to my personal assessment of Blackgate?"

"Please," he responded.

"My assessment is that the team saved lives. Prevented violent offenders from running free. Have I seen cleaner? I have. But the mission was accomplished."

"And your assessment of my leadership that night?" Steve asked, after wavering for moment.

"Sir?"

"You've lead teams into battle, Ororo. I want your feedback."

"Alright," she complied, thinking. "You kept us in line. Managed the unexpected. Acted swiftly. You got the job done, and got everyone home. If I could say the same about each of my endeavors with the X-Men, I'd sleep much better at night."

"Point taken," he started, "but I'd kindly request that you hold me to a higher standard."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"The team took some hits. Thank God you and Batman weren't seriously harmed. And Cyborg getting bushwhacked like that. It could've gone much worse for him."

"Respectfully, sir, I think you'll find that we're tougher than you might be giving us credit."

"I'd rather you not have to prove it, though."

"Captain—"

"What happened with Tombstone was also a failure on my part. I pulled the team back, got us pinned down. Flash and Kara got us out of that bind, not me."

"Is that not what you recruited them for? Flash is the fastest man alive, and Kara could give any one of her relatives a run for their money. Putting their incredible gifts to work is their job. Yours, sir, is to guide us, and when necessary, to anchor us."

Steve sipped his coffee, considering her words.

"I know that a lot is riding on this team," Storm insisted. "We are called upon to defend the nation, and to preserve her future. But the last thing we need is for Captain America, shining symbol and experienced leader that he is, to start doubting himself now."

Hours later, Steve toweled off sweat at an alcove within the Watchtower's training room. Unsatisfied with his performance against Killer Croc, he'd tailored the morning's session towards improving striking power and heightening his tolerance for pain.

As he stilled his breathing, a frigid voice sounded in the distance.

"Got any energy left for a few rounds of sparring?"

Steve turned. It was Batman, who'd just entered the high-tech training arena.

"I don't think that would go well for you," Steve retorted.

"You're entitled to your opinion."

"Actually, I've been meaning to speak with you. The incident at Blackgate resulted in quite a bit of property damage."

"Regrettably," Batman uttered.

"The facility has always been known for its state of disrepair. Perhaps if, say, Wayne Enterprises were to make a small donation—"

"Wayne Enterprises doesn't fund the prison industrial complex."

"But Batman certainly keeps it well-populated," Steve challenged.

"We bailed out Blackgate because they're keeping super criminals, _super criminals_ , out of my city. But don't think for a second that it isn't as crooked as any other place in Gotham. For the time being, Blackgate is a necessary evil."

"Perhaps it can be reformed," Steve suggested.

"Perhaps. But the roots of its misconduct run deep."

"I happen to know a team of seven very good gardeners."

Batman shook his head. "That'll have to wait. There's something you need to see."

He approached, brandishing a computer tablet. After a few taps with his index finger, a security camera feed appeared onscreen.

"What's this?" Steve inquired.

"Security footage at Blackgate. The night of the breach."

Steve sighed. "That footage doesn't belong to us."

"Sure it does."

"If you want to play cyberthief, I think you may have joined the wrong team."

"On the contrary," Batman scowled, "I'm just what this bunch needs. Wars aren't won with soldiers alone, Captain. Reconnaissance, subterfuge, entanglement. We must wield them like any other weapon."

"And where might those weapons lead? It starts with a Blackgate security feed, but where else will you cross the line? Hacking into the Baxter Building? Stark Enterprises? How dirty will your hands get?"

"I'd rather have dirt on my hands than blood. All warfare is based on deception. I'll cross the line if it means the war can be won."

"Why do you keep talking as if we're at war?"

"Because, Captain, I believe we are about to be."

Batman played the feed. On it, an authoritative prison warden ushered each of the nearby guards out of the cell block array. Moments later, a raven-haired businesswoman stepped inside, followed by what appeared to be soldiers of fortune.

The mercenaries wheeled in a number of crates, and per the businesswoman's instructions, opened them. Inside waited rows upon rows of clear containers, each housing a cluster of medicinal-looking capsules.

"MGH," Batman noted.

The mercenaries distributed containers amongst the prison cells, while the businesswoman spoke out to the full floor of inmates.

"Her name is Mercy Graves," Batman explained. "Personal assistant to Lex Luthor, the most powerful human being in Metropolis."

Steve frowned. Lex Luthor, chairman of the board and founder of LexCorp. Simultaneously, one of the most gifted and dangerous criminal minds in existence. Like most men of immense wealth and influence, the extent of his corruption had gone unexamined, his crimes unassailed.

"What interest would Luthor have in a Gotham prison?" Steve pondered.

"I agree, it's curious."

"Was he trying to draw you out? Perhaps one of the other Gotham heroes?"

The two thought silently for a moment.

"I think we should go ask him," Batman exclaimed.

"Bringing the Justice League to the doorstep of LexCorp is something of a hostile action."

"Not what I had in mind," Batman replied.

He selected another window on the computer tablet. It displayed a recent news article. Luthor's photo rested beneath the headline.

"Luthor's opened a new research facility. He's spending seven days there to oversee operations. A stretch of land he owns in the Arizona desert. Private. Isolated."

"So you're saying we take a look," Steve offered.

"I'm saying we take a look."

"Reconnaissance."

Batman nearly grinned. "Now you're getting it."


	3. Chapter 3

**Mesa City** **Desert — Today**

Luthor's facility resembled a military compound more than it did a place for research. Armored jeeps on patrol. Guard towers. Barbed wire and heavy metal.

Worst of all was the lead lining throughout the structure, which negated Power Girl's intrusive vision, and the network firewalls that for the time being left Cyborg's hacking facilities cold.

A pair of stealth drones, designed by Cyborg and Batman, performed routine sweeps of the facility, but in spite of their keen programming had detected next to nothing.

From rocky concealment in the desert hills Batman peered through digital surveillance lenses. Though he was several miles north of the research building, he couldn't shake the feeling that somehow the structure was watching _him._

It was a monstrous place. High-tech and eerily frigid. Perfect, reflective platinum in an ocean of orange desolation. If secrecy had been his aim, then Luthor had spent his money well.

"Cyborg, this is Leader," Steve's voice sounded over the encrypted comm signal. "we're now two hours in. Request sitrep."

Cyborg and Batman had been tasked with surveillance and intelligence gathering. Storm with obfuscation. Her powers cast a bed of gray over the scarred and sandy earth, further masking the drones and making the burning desert all the more tolerable.

Power Girl flew close air support, while Flash ran patrols on the ground. Their primary task was to ensure that the team wasn't in any way detected or flanked.

Steve controlled the operation from a static position adjacent to Batman's. At a moment's notice he and She-Hulk could get to their vehicle and provide backup to any teammate who'd been compromised. In theory.

"Cyborg to Leader," the technopath responded, "Luthor's pitching a shutout at present. I need more time to bypass his firewalls."

"How much time?" Steve questioned.

"I'd expect another 28 minutes. But I've been known to exceed expectations."

A series of beeps rang out over the comm.

"Getting something now," Cyborg declared. "Drone B is transmitting a sensor reading. It picked up an emission of some sort, near the facility's core."

"Emission?" Steve asked. "You mean some sort of chemical?"

"Hang on," was the response, followed by a few tense seconds. Silence.

"Whoa," Cyborg uttered.

And then in a heartbeat the comm link shorted out.

Batman immediately checked the radar setup to his right, which charted the positions of his teammates and the drones. Static. The screen was mauled with fuzz. Then his satellite link to the Batcave fizzled.

All long-range electronics had gone dark.

He decided he would attempt once to restart the equipment before hustling to his Batcycle and abandoning his position. As he did so, he tried the backup frequencies on his comm link. Cold silence on each.

A sense of growing unease tickled him. Not just a feeling of being watched. A feeling of being _hunted_. Seconds ago he had been tethered to six of the nation's greatest defenders. Now he was helpless to locate or reach them. He was alone.

A distant rustling swept up the hills. The feint clicking of displaced rocks and dead brush. Movement. The sense of unease ballooned into red-hot peril.

Batman sprinted towards the Batcycle, concealed near a trail leading down the hill formation. The vehicle was a desperate twenty yards away.

Then a shadow eclipsed his bike, a mammoth leaping figure. The rugged mass plunged into rock and grit directly in front of the bike's frame. A bloodthirsty animal of a man, with thick, vascular muscle. Clawed digits. A necklace of bones and teeth leading to a scruffy mane. The fanged smile of a psychopath.

Batman identified the fiend an instant before the digital reading from his suit flashed to life. A line of text underlined the killer in his cowl's optics. _Victor Creed._ _Codename:_ _Sabretooth._

"Morning," the mutant hissed.

Instantly Batman deployed smoke pellets before dashing to higher ground. The surface around him erupted in clustered black puffs.

"Don't need to see ya', rodent," Sabretooth bragged. "Can smell ya' just fine."

Batman was aware of the mutant's heightened senses. In truth, the smoke served as an attempt to signal any of the other team members. Peripherally the coarse vapors might also keep Sabretooth from perfectly navigating the hilly terrain.

Batman scaled an uneven rock slope, his assailant piercing rapidly through the black fog. Climbing with ferocious glee. Closing in.

With slick accuracy Batman flung a batarang downwards, its angular wing snagging Sabretooth's macabre necklace. As the fiend swatted at the device, its core glowed red and ruptured, a high explosive charge.

The booming gust propelled the brute, roaring and singed, into a harsh descent along sand and jagged, jutting stones. Batman surged up the hill with all of his power, knowing that his survival hinged upon maintaining distance with the monster at all costs.

He huffed, hoisting his torso over a knobby ridge and clearing it. He raced upon flat terrain, his mind cycling through a dozen possibilities. Sabretooth had somehow slipped through Flash's patrol sweeps, that much was clear.

Within a few seconds the brute hurdled into view behind him. Swinging from his waist, the fiend hurled a weighty stone slab, which smashed into Batman's ribcage. The bruising blow stripped the air from his lungs, and he collapsed out of his sprint. A half-second later the spearing sensation of pain plunged into his side.

Batman willed himself to stand, swinging to face his foe, who was now upon him and firing high with a clawed slice. He crouched, narrowly eluding the attack before swiveling out at an angle to create precious space.

Sabretooth repeated the motion a second time, prompting Batman to again crouch. But this slice had been merely a feint, reeling the vigilante into position for a mighty upward knee, which drove into his sternum with a sledgehammer's authority.

Stumbling backwards and flaring with soreness, Batman projected his left arm forth and loosed from his gauntlet gusts of mucky foam. The clumped matter coated Sabretooth's stocky legs and a single arm. The mutant launched his free arm, thudding against Batman's raised guard and nearly dislocating his shoulder.

Abruptly, the hardening foam coagulated into a rigid substance akin to cement, pinning Sabretooth's arm to his ribcage and locking his legs in place.

"You're an idiot if you think this'll hold," Sabretooth barked.

Wincing, Batman hobbled uphill. His pseudo-sanctuary came into view, the mouth of a desert cave.

With a growl Sabretooth violently extended his limbs, bursting out of the crumbling plaster. He hacked away at the remaining bits of hardened foam, freeing himself.

Immediately a .338 Lapua rifle round sailed through the side of the mutant's bulky neck. He clutched at the wound, his trachea and central nervous system disrupted, vision blackening. He slumped to the sand.

From their sniper's nest roughly 2,000 yards away, She-Hulk watched the target fall.

"Hit," she uttered, lowering her surveillance lenses. "Wow."

Steve breathed heavy, mildly stunned that he'd actually made the shot. The sniper rifle had been brought along almost on a whim. It had more than proven its accuracy and worth.

"He's not out of the woods yet," Steve claimed. "Let's get on the road."

"Aye aye," she hooted.

The two rushed towards their hovercraft.

Within a matter of moments Sabretooth stirred. The damaged flesh of his neck reformed and congealed, his mutant healing factor sprouting new muscle and organ tissue. Rising to his knees, he glanced at Batman, who vanished from sight and into the cave's entrance.

Sabretooth sprang to pursue, bounding like a predatory cat into the cave.

"You're running out of tricks, rodent!" Sabretooth howled to his prey.

A meek clanging sounded beneath him, followed by the sudden eruption of a flashbang grenade. It dispersed an instant wave of burning light and sonic shock, which tore into his enhanced senses, stunning him. He snarled, dizzied and aching.

His bloodlust doubling, he sprang through the dim cave interior. Clearing several yards with each pounce. With vicious speed he met Batman and tackled him, hammering down with fists, claws. Biting at the vigilante's available throat.

Batman weaved and caught strikes on the blades of his gauntlets, avoiding the lethal blows by a hair, but still absorbing punishment. With a split second to spare he shifted from the onslaught, flipped a switch on his belt, then returned to his guard.

A uniquely high-pitched sonic chirp shot out through the cave, inaudible to the human ear, but perceptible to something else.

Sabretooth slashed into Batman's suit, shredding away a layer of body armor. Then his senses alerted him to something in the cave. A whirring bluster, heightening in intensity.

"One rodent leads to another," the fiend lamented.

In a flash the bluster swept in, like a whirlwind, a black cloud of shrieking, flapping bats, by the hundreds and hundreds. The roused fliers swarmed the two combatants, gripping and pecking, like a thousand bee stings, causing Sabretooth for a second to flail and cover up.

Batman seized the moment, sliding out from beneath the fiend and crawling free of the winged storm. Sabretooth remained disoriented, his senses blaring, his husky frame cocooned in the shrill frenzy.

The vigilante sprinted with all he had left, clearing the cave and returning to sunlight.

A short burst of static sounded on his comm link.

"I've got our gear back up and running," Cyborg declared via transmission.

"Excellent," Steve replied over the comm. "All suits, form on Batman's position immediately."

A minute later, the seven members of the Justice League gathered on the hill and surrounded Batman.

"What happened to you?" Flash blurted out, observing his teammate's scarred suit.

"Sabretooth," Batman explained, motioning toward the cave. "He snuck past you, kid."

"That jerk!" Flash exclaimed. "I'll handle him—"

"Negative," Steve interrupted. "We've been compromised, it's time to relocate and reassess the situation."

"Might be too late for that," Cyborg lamented, glancing up at the sky.

Hundreds of yards above the League hovered an impressive helmeted being. Adorned in an emerald green tunic and lavender plates of armor, the royal garb of some foreign time.

The being separated his palms, and a luminescent green orb took form between them. A glowing cybernetic device. He cast the device downward, and as it fell it grew in size and complexity. A futuristic bomb, gaining mass and burning with energy. Rapidly crashing down upon the League.

"All suits, evac!" Steve commanded.

They burst into action, She-Hulk clutching Steve by the waist and leaping emphatically from the hill formation. Flash took hold of Batman and zipped down at a demoniac pace. Power Girl gripped both Cyborg and Storm by the arm and rocketed away like a missile loosed from its rail.

The orb smashed into the hill formation and detonated. A hellish white-green explosion boomed, deafening, horrific, like an atomic blast. The hills that stood disintegrating, crumbling, a gargantuan crater carving into them.

The team settled on the desert floor, having barely cleared the staggering blast wave. They were now withstanding a giant rain of consequential dust and debris.

Flash vibrated his arms at intense speeds, creating fanning cyclones to redirect the volleys. Storm assisted with shoving winds, and Power Girl let out a massive exhale, forcing back the tremendous chunks of rock and grit.

It took a couple of minutes for the devastation to grow tame, the quaking earth to settle. In that time the team had retreated further from the blast radius, and had checked each other for injuries.

"What now, Captain?" Storm asked.

Steve looked up to the distant being, who was now lowering himself gradually towards the surface.

A tinge of unease tickled Steve's solar plexus. If the floating assailant was who Steve suspected he was, the League would need to fashion a magnificent distraction before realizing any chance of escape.

There was no time to collect his thoughts. A grouping of radiant silhouettes emerged before the seven, materializing into the forms of four individuals.

One was an old man, ghostly and grim, encased in a technological cryo-suit, a transparent dome and pair of red goggles shielding him from the heat of the desert. He bore a sizable cryogenic rifle, connected by conduits to a generator at the aft of his suit.

Batman recognized him immediately. The scientist Victor Fries. A perennial foe, the Gotham City nightmare known appropriately as Mr. Freeze.

Next was a physical specimen, an ox of a woman, with copper, shoulder-length hair and pitiless green eyes. She donned a gold and black athletic jumpsuit, with leopard print accentuating her boots, collar and gloves.

Doria Zuel was her name. Standing nearly seven feet tall, threatening at any moment to sprout and expand further. To become the towering menace Giganta.

The third individual was the reappearing Sabretooth, showing neither signs of exhaustion nor of injury. Wearing a sadistic grin. He must have somehow been teleported from the cave before the bomb's detonation.

Standing before the villains was a fourth adversary, sheathed in a menacing jade battle suit. A hulking mechanical marvel, coated with substantial layers of metallic plating. Seemingly impervious.

His hairless head poked out from the suit, his chin raised. The furrowed creases on his forehead complimenting his stony gaze. His entire face a physical expression of cold intellect and disdainful superiority.

"Lex Luthor," Steve uttered grimly.

"But not _just_ me, Captain," Lex answered, motioning to his accompaniment. "The gang's all here."

The hovering man finally touched down, taking up position by Luthor's side. He resembled some kind of sinister robot, an expressionless blue mask veiling his true appearance. Even his eyes were shrouded, empty white orbs, which gleamed with ruinous intent.

His bizarre belt and gauntlets buzzed and blinked with intricate bits of technology, compact devices, foreign to any contemporary inhabitant of Earth. The man, along with his tools, belonged somewhere else, thousands of years beyond the current date.

He stood with poise, planting his boots into the earth as if the terrain belonged to him. Like he had done so many times before, on countless other worlds. For he was a natural dictator. For he was Kang the Conqueror.

"What is all of this?" Steve demanded.

"I might ask you the same," Lex countered. "You and your friends are trespassing. Outright spying. On my property."

"We have questions for you, regarding the incident in Gotham five days ago."

"Your nerve appalls me," Lex scowled. "Why should I oblige you, your band of infiltrators?"

"Because you'll end up flattened if you don't," Power Girl fumed.

"Kara," Steve interjected, attempting to reel her in. Lighting a fuse was not in the team's best interest, not with Luthor _and_ Kang staring them down.

"I was hoping the Kryptonian might speak up," Lex grinned. "A shame she never has, nor will, have anything of value to contribute to a dialogue."

"But this isn't a dialogue, Luthor," Batman spoke. "This is your idea of playing with your food."

"What a crass insinuation," Lex returned.

"Admit it," Batman continued. "You wanted the Justice League to come here. You've been studying us. The breach at Blackgate brought us out in the open, and you learned from a distance what we're capable of."

"It would seem that years of detective work has made you paranoid," Lex answered.

"I'm face to face with super-powered murderers, a time-traveling autocrat and the most calculating nemesis Superman ever had, who looks like he's suited up for a global war. I'd say my paranoia is justified."

Lex chuckled softly to himself. "Perhaps it is," he muttered callously.

"I'll ask one last time," Steve offered. "What is the meaning of this? Why have you affiliated yourself with Kang, with Sabretooth?"

"No mention of me?" Giganta groaned. "I'm insulted."

Lex inhaled. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We are _your_ opposite, Captain. An Injustice League, destined to expose America's corruption. To extirpate the world's greatest superpower, to maim and enslave its protectors. To _break_ you."

Steve shuddered, then immediately calcified his will. Seizing the initiative would be key, as would neutralizing the enemy's most significant threat.

"All suits, attack!" He howled. "Focus fire on Kang!"

"Which one is Kang?" Flash puzzled.

At once the League took up a blitzing combat formation, Power Girl, Storm and Cyborg elevating skyward while She-Hulk and Flash burst down the middle. Batman and Steve shuffled outward to either flank, looking to pincer their target.

"As it has always been," Kang sighed, his voice a synthesized baritone. "A visionary challenged by primitive fools."

A spherical transparent force screen took shape around Kang, fending off Flash's blistering flurry of strikes.

"Hacks!" Flash complained.

Concurrently the despot glanced at Storm, loosing optic beams, royal yellow, wrought with concussive force and intense heat. The javelins struck her torso and she moaned, impelled backwards several yards. She crashed.

Mid-sprint, She-Hulk caught a thick blueish beam from Mr. Freeze's rifle. The cryogenic surge bloomed into jagged formations of ice, encasing the brawny woman's legs and trunk in glacial inertia, painful and yet simultaneously numbing.

Flash darted in chaotic patterns as Kang blasted away at him with a cutting edge particle gun.

"Bypass his shield!" Steve ordered. "Target around it!"

Power Girl and Cyborg swooped in above Kang, Cyborg's mechanical arm transmuting into a bulky plasma cannon. Power Girl's eyes ignited and the two let out thick waves of red. An awesome, sustained bombardment.

The projected blaze struck the earth surrounding Kang's force screen. It drilled through the surface, mauling and shifting the terrain.

The violent desert convulsions upset his balance and threw his concentration. His defensive screen cut out for a moment and he tumbled into a shallow chasm, trapped there by broken earth.

"No!" Lex exclaimed. "Irksome roaches!"

With that the shoulder plates on Lex's battle suit were shed, revealing a pair of weapon pods. A salvo of miniature rockets flung from them, a dozen streaking munitions, barreling after Power Girl and Cyborg.

Steve noted Lex's infuriated response. It was as if something dear to him had just been threatened. Perhaps Kang was more than an ultra-powerful ally. Perhaps Lex _needed_ him to realize a key objective.

"Flash, assist She-Hulk," Steve commanded, already lobbing his vibranium shield with the power and technical perfection of an Olympic discus competitor.

The weapon spiraled at Luthor, but was seized in midair by a beam from Freeze's rifle. The now frozen shield stalled and sank, bearing extra weight and mass.

The two fliers weaved and maneuvered to shake Lex's rockets, but were each tagged by a few of the detonating seekers. The explosions were acutely loud, shuddering, disorienting, but caused no significant harm.

Reaching his ally, Flash vibrated the crystalline chunks at screaming speeds. The ice around She-Hulk melted and steamed until she was liberated.

Mr. Freeze discharged cryogenic beams at Steve, who performed a ceaseless series of gymnastic leaps, tumbles and sidesteps to shake them. The air around Steve grew acerbically frigid, and his lungs inflamed as if prodded by needles.

Freeze's attention was too diverted to sight the small projectile that sailed in and stabbed into the chest plate of his suit. The slight impact prompted him to look down at the black device now fixed to him. Bat-shaped.

The high explosive batarang blew, its jarring eruption flinging Freeze like a soft-bodied rag doll across a ten yard stretch of desert.

Abruptly, Lex fired a repulsor ray from his palm. The stream of red-gold fury punched into Steve's sternum and he collapsed to his knees. Steve clutched at his wound, his flesh blistered, bones throbbing.

"You submit so easily?" Lex taunted.

He was answered by Power Girl, who lanced in like a bullet train, then shifted her hips to drive a thunderous roundhouse kick into his suit's midsection. Lex didn't budge.

"Not good enough," he bragged.

"Isolate him, Kara!" Steve shouted.

Shaking off her bewilderment, Power Girl pressed against Lex, clasping her arms below his. Having hooked his limbs, she shot upwards, lifting him with her at vicious speeds. They sprang up through a cloud bed and out of sight.

Batman found himself in Sabretooth's clutches, wrapped from behind in a strangling body lock. The brute's arms knotted around his abdomen, stealing his air, his bones and organs feeling like they would burst from the pressure.

"Gonna finish what I started, rodent," Sabretooth hissed.

He tensed, compressing Batman's torso further, but was disrupted by a stream of red-hot plasma. The energy blast slammed into his lower spine, a sensation of shock branding his nervous system. It was enough of a jolt to loosen his grip, thus freeing the vigilante.

Cyborg steadied his weapon, preparing for a second blast.

"Hold your fire," She-Hulk demanded, shaking off the chill and numbness in her muscles. "This fur ball is mine."

She leaped into range, parrying away Sabretooth's slashing arm. As the brute reactively pounced forward, bearing his teeth and fixating on her neck, she caught him in the solar plexus with a devastating short uppercut.

He wheezed, stunned by the sheer power of her intercepting strike, his organs temporarily displaced, the neighboring ribs lighting up with tremulous inflammation.

Their mutual momentum drove them into a close-range clinch, and Sabretooth clawed and bit at her with animal fervor. She clamped the aft of his skull with both arms, a double collar tie hold, limiting his movement and offense, her outrageous strength unshakable.

Pressing her hips forward and elevating her heels, she increased the leverage of the hold. After swatting his protesting arm downward she swiped into his jaw with a crushing elbow strike.

The fulminant wallop nearly claimed Sabretooth's consciousness. It splintered his jaw, displaced teeth. He backed off, his legs buckling.

As She-Hulk stepped in with a straight punch, he chopped back at her with a well-timed counter. Their attacks made simultaneous contact, hers shattering his nose, his raking over her eyes with thick talons.

She veered off to an angle, shaking her head, temporarily sightless. As the cuts stung at her senses, she could do little more than keep mobile and raise her arms defensively.

"I hope there's more where this comes from," Sabretooth growled, tasting her plasma on his claws.

"Hate to disappoint you," She-Hulk spat, angling towards the position of Sabretooth's voice.

She swung her arms outward, then fiercely thwacked her palms together. The thunderclap launched a booming wave that overtook him, its sonic crack hammering at his hearing and its sheer force ramming him like a speeding bus. He flew backwards a great distance.

Having nearly gone unnoticed by the combatants, Giganta let out a sigh. It resembled an exclamation of relief more than anything.

"Finally," she exclaimed, "I get you all to myself."

With that her entire figure swelled, enlarging in uniform proportion, extending to a height of 10 yards, 25, and in seconds she stretched up beyond 50. Each member of the heroic League gazed up at her with distressed awe.

"Not _solely_ to yourself," a haunting voice announced.

Kang. He rose up from beneath the ground, his armor and gadgetry pristine, undamaged.

"Could this get any worse for us?" Flash grumbled.

"Please don't ask," She-Hulk responded.

"Gonna need my shield, Flash," Steve implored.

"You most certainly are," Kang boasted.

Without pause a weapon warped in, seemingly from the aether, in a flash of purple-blue light and vapor. It settled in Kang's hand, a complex and peculiar sidearm, then acquired concurrent target locks on each of the six heroes.

Kang flipped a switch and the gun projected forth six streaks of concentrated energy. The bursts sailed out in several directions, blasting five of the team members, making contact at the center of mass and knocking the targets down.

Flash, however, remained unscathed, having reverberated his molecular makeup to the point of intangibility. The gun blast had simply passed through him.

With a mountainous boot Giganta stomped down at the fallen five, a dreadful descent, like a failing airplane, committed to mashing the paltry adversaries.

Flash strained with all of his effort to dash in and pull each of his friends clear of the collision. Just before the crushing blow, he lugged the last of the team, Batman, away from the red zone.

Giganta's boot smashed into the earth with the impact of a meteorite, blasting a crater into the desert floor and flooding the terrain with tremors. Though the six had eluded the gargantuan smash, they were still nearly felled by its quaking echoes.

The team regained their footing and took up formation. Flash whizzed out and back in red blurs, returning with Steve's shield, the ice once blanketing it liquified.

"I feel like I'm picking up a _lot_ of slack today," Flash remarked, handing over the shield.

"We gotta do something about her," Batman insisted, eyeing the building-sized Giganta.

"I can keep her occupied," Cyborg offered.

"Be careful," Steve answered.

"Victor," Batman declared to Cyborg sternly. "I need you to engage the Ladybird protocols."

Cyborg sobered. "Are you sure?"

"The Injustice League isn't leaving us much choice," was Batman's stark response.

"What are you two talking about?" Steve puzzled.

"There's no more time," Batman declared.

Cyborg nodded, and took to the skies. His neural network humming with activity as he did.

"What are the Ladybird protocols?" Steve asked. "Tell me, now."

"A safeguard," Batman answered. Just pray that it works."


	4. Chapter 4

Elsewhere, thousands of yards above the sustained conflict, Power Girl laid into Lex's battle suit with labored, stout hooks. The heavy strikes threw Lex rearward, but only a short distance before his suit steadied itself. Its plating showed no wear.

She surged at him, a bed of clouds beneath her cleaved by the stirring velocity. She refused to acknowledge the inadequacy of her punches, the minor aches slipping into her knuckles and metacarpals.

Drawing back her elbow, she again swung, but her attack was cut off by his blocking forearm. He returned with a cavalier shove, flinging her a dozen yards. She fumed at the arrogant gesture.

"Of all the scum refugees of Krypton," Lex began, "you are perhaps the most brash. How repugnant."

His fingers parted, and surging from them an intense golden ray stung Power Girl, erupting against her torso. She repressed the impulse to wail, her extraterrestrial nerves twinging with white-hot anguish. She tensed and tightened her musculature, a false indication that his blast had been shrugged off.

"It must spur panic in you repulsive aliens," Lex went on, "each and every time, to know that your artless, oafish strength, which you regularly bank on to resolve every complication, can be so completely overthrown by majestic intellect, the one thing that you will _never_ possess."

"There's _nothing_ about you that inspires panic," Power Girl exclaimed. "The urge to vomit, on the other hand."

She unleashed a battle cry, unfastening some of the psychological cord that subdued her titanic strength. The mental conditioning she honed daily, to quell her unspeakable potential, to keep Earth and everyone on it safe.

She zoomed at him like a hypersonic spear, each arm stretched out in front of her. Approximating a jousting weapon, she punched into the chest plate of his suit, this time denting it somewhat. The raging momentum she generated sent them hurling and conjoined through miles of clouded sky.

Mildly surprised, Lex communicated with his battle suit, electrifying it. An outrageous bundle of conducted voltage engulfed her, which stunned and grated like sparking ice.

As she sailed back to distance herself from the maelstrom, Lex contemplated which would satisfy him more: prolonging the scuffle, awarding the Kryptonian a false sense of optimism and allowing her to slowly tire, or pressuring her immediately, amplifying his suit's power output and battering her with crude abandon.

He settled on the latter option, first tagging her with another ray blast and then moving into close range. He bowed slightly, driving a left hook into her ribcage, his potent gauntlet causing her torso to wince and arch.

Immediately he rose, following up with a vicious right hand to her jaw. Reeling, she instinctively answered with a straight punch, which glanced ineffectually off of his shoulder.

Overflowing with triumphant elation, he seized her neck. Little gratified him more than squeezing the spirit out of a reputedly godlike Kryptonian. Diminishing them. Making them feeble.

Lex envisioned the future, how he would orchestrate their extinction. How each of their demises would cause Superman further sorrow. Until the execrable hero was Krypton's last representative, a failure, condemned to being snuffed out like the rest.

He stiffened his grip.

—

Near the surface, Cyborg soared at the colossal Giganta. She scowled and swatted at him, speeding gnat that he was.

"Bad idea!" she barked, her voice assuredly _tremendous_ and blaring.

The sheer heft of the deafening racket throttled Cyborg. As his entire frame shook, he summoned every ounce of willpower to not only hold course, but to push forward, accelerating like a cutting edge fighter jet.

Above Giganta, a bundle of direful clouds briskly took form. Cyborg smirked, spotting Storm as she swooped in behind the unknowing giant.

A leviathan blue bolt of lightning pitched down from the heavens and stabbed into Giganta's cranium. Her mouth locked up in a frozen gasp, her senses jarred, then petrified. She jittered, nearly toppling over.

A second later the lightning was chased by a stupendous crack and atmospheric rumbling clamor.

Cyborg sprang into range while again fabricating a plasma cannon. He lingered just in front of Giganta's oversized left eye as she regained cognizance, then discharged a torrent of high-intensity plasma into her vast green lens.

The cannon fire scalded delicate layers of tissue, burning away half of her vision. Cyborg engaged in a sharp turn to elude Giganta's grand flailing limbs. She curled over, tending to her injury.

Storm swayed her arms like a maestro, lashing at Giganta with a string of smaller bolts. They stung her like whips while Cyborg assumed position near the giant's temple.

His arm morphed and reshaped, this time into a contraption that fanned open like a blooming flower. He flew to the opening of Giganta's ear canal and let it off, a potent white noise cannon, which projected hundreds of harsh decibels, shrieking, torturous.

The discord tore at Giganta's eardrum, a grating, turbulent influx. Her equilibrium thrown, she sunk to her knees, rocking the earth, succumbing to the heroes' paired attack.

In mere seconds she diminished in size, shrinking down to a more modest stature. As she shortened, Cyborg strafed down and nailed her jaw with clenched alloy knuckles. Her legs locked in place, as if turned to stone, and she flopped to one side, blacking out.

Dozens and dozens of yards away, four of the League members scrambled to contend with the dangerous multiplicity and guile of Kang. The autocrat hovered a few yards above the ground, intent on denying the heroes their previous tactic.

Kang emitted his optic beams, which pounded against Steve's vibranium shield, the shafts' brilliance and intensity grinding against durable metal.

With a half-second opening Batman tossed his remaining flashbang grenade. It broke apart just beneath Kang, wrapping him in fiery glare and drilling noise.

From an angle vaulted She-Hulk, who channeled a confounding portion of energy into a heavy punch. Her fist rumbled against Kang's force screen, which revoked her violent intentions.

She drummed on the screen with additional strikes, roaring with exertion and annoyance. Kang extended his fingers, releasing jets of noxious smoke from their tips, an advanced nerve gas, which blanketed her, strangled her rage.

In a moment the nerve agent took effect, unsettling her impulses, causing her to buckle and then convulse in the sand.

Like a furious rocket, Flash raced in behind Kang, a magnificent arrow of screaming speed. He crashed into the villain's spherical screen with mythical intensity, delivering a straight punch that caused the buffer to warble and bend.

The impact sent Kang spinning, a turbulent four second flight, before he righted himself.

"Physics lesson," Flash gloated. "Force equals mass times acceleration. And I'm the best there is at accelerating. Which means I can generate enough force to break down that sissy bubble you hide behind."

"You think so?" Kang cruelly challenged. "Then try it again."

"Don't do it, Flash!" Steve warned.

Disregarding him, Flash barreled forth with hellish upsurges of velocity. In a heartbeat he was upon the defense, but this time waves of intangible pressure, emanating from Kang's extended fist, pulsed outwards, infecting everything nearby.

It was a mystical essence, known as the Cobalt Force, paralyzing, gargantuan and weighty, as if the local gravity had been multiplied countless times over. It stalled Flash, binding him in place, and inevitably pulling him to the ground.

Kang considered Steve and Batman, the only two heroes left standing.

"Laughable," he commented.

—

In the skies above, Power Girl struggled madly to draw oxygen. As Lex's solid gauntlets wrung her neck, she loosed twin rods of heat from her pupils, which blazed at his seemingly exposed cranium. A transparent energized dome obstructed the red blaze, shielding him.

"How amusing," Lex mocked. "To watch you utter one last gasp."

For an instant Power Girl's consciousness drifted, conjuring images of her home planet. Krypton. The dying world. It had been the last gasp of her people, their final effort, that made her very existence possible. She couldn't allow that legacy to be smothered. Not by Lex Luthor. Not by a monster.

She dissolved her mental restraints further, coaxing a preposterous degree of might from within. Drawing an arm across Lex's constricting limbs, she hacked downwards in a startling motion, which speedily broke his hold.

With a massive puff Power Girl sent forward a staggering gale, whooshing air, catapulting Lex in spite of his suit's stabilizers and resistance mechanisms.

Her breath went frigid, clothing Lex's armor in restrictive chunks of ice. He hung in the air, strain on his face, the ice slowly cracking as his suit worked to crush through it.

She allowed him no time. She blitzed him, clutching his encased suit and driving him down towards the surface. They plummeted, whistling through the sky with vicious rapidity. Faster and faster still.

In less than a second the desert came into view, and she shoved him violently earthward. He sank like a bomb clearing mach 10, hardly visible, then shredded through the desert floor, fashioning an impressive crater.

Tunneling like a needle through dermis, Lex plunged through miles of crust and ore. His suit's alarms chimed, its tolerances stressed. Eventually he settled, pinched somewhere within the Earth's mantle.

In the distance, Kang hurled bolts from his particle gun at the two opponents. Steve waved his shield to thwart the projectiles, all the while closing space.

Batman leaped and skirted most of the shots, but was ultimately snagged by one on the shoulder. He recoiled at the burning discomfort, and was caught in the chest by a second particle burst. He quickly dropped.

"And now you are alone," Kang asserted, glowering at Steve.

Steve worked to catch his breath. "It puzzles me, Kang, that you would take up arms with Luthor."

"The subject of what puzzles you comes nowhere close to interesting me."

"Despite all of your authoritative bluster," Steve continued. "you allow him, a 21st century primate, to call the shots."

"Is that what you assume?" Kang countered, marginally invested.

"I think it's pretty clear. Who is leading. Who is following. But why side with him at all? What deficiencies do you now possess, Conqueror?"

Kang snarled. "Your sad attempt to halt your own annihilation amuses me."

"I'm glad," Steve answered back. "And by the way, I'm _not_ alone."

Sweeping in suddenly, Cyborg launched a roaring barrage from his white noise cannon. Congruously, Storm produced a web of black clouds directly over Kang, resulting in eruptions of lightning.

While the bolts were absorbed by his force screen, the subsequent boomy crashes of thunder melded with Cyborg's vehement static to callously hammer Kang's senses, agitating him.

It was enough to unseat his focus, thereby dissipating his command of the Cobalt Force. Flash stirred, combating exhaustion but now capable of motility.

Kang answered back with his particle gun, wounding Storm with a shot to her thigh. She yelped, then called upon the winds to ferry her clear of the additional bolts.

"All suits," Steve called out through his comm link. "We've got to try and overload his shield."

"Not sure it can be done, Captain," Cyborg cautioned.

"How hard could it be?" came a female voice. It was Power Girl, streaking in from above.

Steve observed Kang, who readied himself for fresh combat.

"All suits, he affirmed. "Execute."

Bedlam. From multiple fronts. Exploding against Kang's barricade, shaking the desert floor and stirring up titanic waves of dust.

Cyborg had converted much of his upper body into an assortment of weapon systems, beam cannons, rocket tubes, chain guns. He jettisoned his munitions wildly.

Storm stoked her mutant powers, directing most of her stamina into a furious tornado, far beyond an F5, which whipped and erupted directly upon Kang's position.

Power Girl screamed, raining down thickening currents of her crimson heat vision.

Finally Flash, revitalized, rotated his arms hurriedly and projected forward-moving windstorms, which drilled against Kang's sphere at dreadful speeds.

"We all-in on this?" Flash inquired.

Steve surveyed the team. They wouldn't be able to sustain the barrage for long. He muttered a prayer, then decided.

"All suits," he communicated. "Go to maximum. I repeat, give him everything you've got."

The heroes poured it on, Cyborg drawing from his energy reserves, Storm pushing beyond her psychological limits. Aware of the catastrophic magnitude of their abilities, Power Girl and Flash found themselves unable to breach their self-imposed boundaries.

Squelched by the comprehensive salvo, Kang's force screen distorted. In the assault's final second, his defenses became overstressed. They fizzled.

Kang was blasted from everywhere by fire, radiation, hellish wind, shrapnel, hunks of rock and other desert debris. He groaned, then sailed rearward, skidding across the sand.

Sapped of strength, Storm collapsed, very nearly fainting. The other heroes relented, recapturing their composure.

Between them, Kang arose from smoke and rubble. To Steve's utter dejection, the villain's regal armor had gone predominantly unmarked.

"A mildly entertaining display," Kang snickered.

Without warning, three figures teleported in at Kang's side. Freeze, his cryo-suit charred, but functioning. Sabretooth, entirely healed. Worst of all, Lex Luthor.

"All suits," Steve sighed. "Form on me."

His team was debilitated. Diminished. But he refused to believe that they were doomed. Nonetheless, the situation was beginning to feel an awful lot like a last stand.

Lex took a few steps forward, his gauntlets balling up into fists.

"There is no justice in this world," he proclaimed, his voice inflated with triumph.

The League grouped up and stood their ground. All seven. Even She-Hulk, still dazed from remnants of the nerve agent. Even Batman, his body quaking with soreness.

"Any of you schmucks happen to have an ace up your sleeve?" Flash asked of his comrades.

"Funny you should ask," Cyborg chuckled.

At the same time a notification chirped in Batman's cowl. He let out a relieved sigh. "I see the Ladybird protocols worked," he remarked to Cyborg.

Steve perked up. "Your safeguard?"

"When we spoke at Watchtower," Batman began, squinting up at the sky, "you asked how dirty my hands would get."

From the clouds, a swarm of tiny shapes converged.

"You mentioned hacking," he went on, "you mentioned Stark Enterprises. I found that rather prophetic of you."

The shapes drew nearer, grew larger. In seconds they came to be distinguishable. An advancing armada. A legion of what appeared to be metal men.

Stark armors. The masterworks of a billionaire tech genius. Mechanized exoskeletons, with dazzling offensive capabilities.

Typically the unmanned automations served the prolific superhero Iron Man. Presently, however, they were compelled to satisfy Cyborg's technopathic directives.

The armors, from disparate eras and brandishing various components, separated into three squadrons, one initiating a steep forward dive while the others yawed to either side.

Lex grimaced, examining the hostile skies. "What do you make of this?" He inquired, turning to Kang.

"A complication," the tyrant replied, troubled.

The twin flanking squadrons opened up with enveloping volleys, repulsor fire, machine gun rounds, sonic bursts, missiles and micromunitions in harsh, dynamic cannonades. Their slaughterous rainstorm pinned down the villains, compelling them to assume a defensive posture.

Meanwhile the diving element touched down and slipped into melee range. Lex sighted them and shot off a rocket, which struck a handful of the nearing machines.

The rocket's detonation produced a voltaic ripple, an electromagnetic pulse, which deadened processing units and shorted a few of the armors. They crumbled, while many others took their place and stormed the four unlawful foes.

"Shall we join them?" She-Hulk suggested with renewed spirit.

"Affirmative," Steve responded, a sliver of optimism sneaking into his psyche.

The League dashed into the mammoth fray, Steve leading the charge. All the while, Stark armors were blasted back by force beams, stalled by cryogenic blasts, as far more flooded the vicinity, concealed by the bombardment of their counterparts.

Before long the Injustice League found themselves at the nerve center of an effusive, unruly brawl. Fenced in on all sides, like something out of a nightmare, by sophisticated iron men, nearly perfect mechanical warriors.

The armors' offensive thickened, like an engulfing mist, punctuated by barrages of light, roaring bursts, combustion and pummeling alloy.

Lex blinked, his eyes stung by sweat. He recognized all too plainly the futility of his situation. It made him livid.

"This I promise," he grumbled, gazing at the Justice League. "Next time I will see you broken."

With that the four criminals dissipated, teleporting from the battle just before a wave of machines pounced on their position.

The armors abruptly ceased fire, though slightly out of sync, their targets no longer present. It was a bizarre cessation, a three second shift from undiluted bedlam to sputtering deceleration to sobering stillness.

"You mean it's all over?" Flash remarked, surveying the settling battlefield. "So soon?"

With that he collapsed out of utter fatigue.


	5. Chapter 5

**Earth's** **Moon —** **S** **even** **Hours Later**

"Would you like some coffee?" Steve offered, standing behind the desk in his office.

"No thank you," Cyborg refused, having just entered the room. "Caffeine has no effect on me."

"Right, of course. Have a seat."

Cyborg complied. The two regarded each other for a moment, Steve choosing not to sit.

"Shall I begin?" Cyborg requested.

"Yes."

"Starting with Drone B. The emission it picked up from Luthor's facility. Not chemical. Radioactive. It was gamma radiation, sir."

"Why didn't you tell me in Arizona? After Luthor's team withdrew."

"Once Stark's tech overrode my transmissions and abandoned us, you decided we were too injured to move in on the facility. At that point I decided it would be better to wait and inform you privately."

"And what do you imagine Luthor is planning to do with gamma rays?"

"I don't have to imagine. I hacked his personal log."

Cyborg projected from his forehead holographic imagery, three-dimensional light constructs. They were dossiers, complete with photos and detailed write-ups.

"Luthor's test subject," Cyborg indicated, pointing to the man in the foremost dossier.

"Emil Blonsky," Steve sighed. "Luthor's tinkering with his own personal Abomination."

"He's expanding his roster. Not exactly good news, I know."

"It means we'll have to pay Arizona another visit. Soon."

"And here I am still picking sand out of my sockets," Cyborg huffed.

Steve drank in a bit of coffee.

"I gathered more intel from Luthor's log," Cyborg carried on, "regarding Kang."

"I'm listening."

"Apparently Luthor discovered the Conqueror in a compromised state. His ceaseless movements through the time stream have resulted in molecular and psychological trauma. He appears to be trapped in our time, with 21st century materials failing to sustain his technology. So Luthor made him a deal."

"Join the Injustice League, and once we've completed our mission I'll get you home."

"Pretty much. But get this. What Luthor _really_ wants is to acquire Kang's time travel apparatuses. One of his plans involves going back to stop Superman from surviving Krypton's destruction."

Steve frowned. "How Lex Luthor of him."

For a moment they each thought silently.

"That's all I've got, sir."

"One other thing," Steve stated. "The Ladybird protocols."

"Right," Cyborg muttered, then cursed under his breath.

"You, along with Batman, set in place an emergency measure that involved hacking Tony Stark's computers and confiscating his armors in case we ever needed help beating up bad guys."

"That's accurate," Cyborg admitted sourly.

"You did so without consulting me, orStark himself."

"Batman knew you'd never go through with it—"

"What I would or wouldn't have done is beside the point. You've chosen to be on this team, a team that I command. Either you have faith in my leadership and accept your support role, or you don't and you walk."

"To be fair, Captain, Ladybird _saved_ us."

"I'm not sure it did. Because now we've shattered Stark's trust. _Tony Stark_ , one of the world's most gifted minds and one of its most beloved Avengers. Do you think She-Hulk's going to enjoy hosing down the legal firestorm you've just cooked up for us? Criminals hack into Stark Enterprises. Villains steal from Tony Stark. Not the Justice League."

"Am I being kicked off the team?" Cyborg inquired uncomfortably.

Steve breathed in. "I don't know. Because you've shattered _my_ trust as well. You're right, Ladybird bailed us out. But it may have also burned valuable bridges. Bridges that are critical in helping us stop Kang. Stop Luthor. And those two _must_ be stopped."

"I understand your position. It's just not how Batman operates. He's not a bridges guy."

"I'll figure out what to do with him as well," Steve said through gritted teeth.

Steve glanced out his window to observe the moon's surface. For a moment his burdensome thoughts were cast out into the motionless sea of gray. He blinked, and like magnets they returned, clinging to him.

"I'd like the data from Luthor's log in my inbox within the hour. You're dismissed."

It occurred to Steve that Batman had been right. The Justice League was now at war. With an enemy that rivaled them in intelligence, sheer firepower, experience and grit. A savage foe, threatening in every capacity. The team's most pressing opposition. Their equal. Their opposite.

After Cyborg exited, Steve took another sip of coffee, knowing he was in for a long night. He considered the drink's flavor, realizing that the he'd miraculously dialed in the coffee machine settings to near perfection. Somehow drumming up the whimsy, he laughed to himself. The arrangement wouldn't last.

 **The End**


End file.
